Hydrometallurgy of Metals from Primary and Secondary Resources in Sustainable Methods and Processes

Dear Colleagues,

Metals play an important role in modern society and are indispensable for industrial development and people’s daily life. Many of them have been extracted and recovered from the earth using hydrometallurgical methods and processes which involve treatment in aqueous solutions, such as leaching, separation and purification. However, some of the processes also pose high risks to the environment and human health from the toxic reagents, hazardous effluents and solid wastes, and strict process conditions. The depletion of some metal resources with increasingly lower grades has even added more challenges to the sustainability of a hydrometallurgical process. The development of sustainable methods and processes for the hydrometallurgical recovery of metals is always of interest to researchers. The present Special Issue focuses on the recovery of metals from natural and secondary resources using sustainable methods and processes. The metals of interest are broadly considered, such as base metals (BMs), precious metals (PMs), platinum group metals (PGMs) and rare earth metals (REMs). Topics of interest to this Special Issue include, but are not limited to, improvement and innovation in:

• Sustainable extraction of metals using chemical reagents or bacteria;
• Separation and purification of metals using sustainable methods;
• Thermodynamics and kinetics of sustainable hydrometallurgical treatments;
• Mechanism study of environmentally benign/ friendly leaching methods;
• Modeling, simulation, and economic assessment of sustainable hydrometallurgical processes;
• Sustainable recycling of metal-bearing urban and industrial wastes;
• Recycling of reagents and treatment of effluents;
• Pre-treatment of mine resources for sustainable metal extraction;
• Recovery of metal minerals from low-grade metal ore and tailings.

Dr. Huan Li
Dr. Li Wang
Guest Editors

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• metals
• recovery
• extraction
• resources
• recycling
• hydrometallurgy